Masada and the Dead Sea

Wow, I just realized that I haven't blogged in almost a week!  The days go by so fast and I'm afraid I forget (plus, we are sharing 1 computer between 10 people and it sucks typing blog posts on an iPhone - props to J.S. for gettin 'er done that way, but my hands are too small :)

Anyways, I last left y'all in Hebron.

Since then we've done LOADS of exciting things!  I'll post each day in individual posts so I (and you) can keep track :)

We went to the ruins of Masada, which is where the people legendarily committed mass suicide when the wall was breached by the attacking Romans to avoid becoming slaves.  That was pretty hot (41 degrees in the SHADE) and we hiked up the "mountain".  The view was pretty awesome, but it gets pretty dusty/hazy/smoggy here so even though we could kind of make out the Dead Sea in the distance, it wasn't a super clear view.  After we toured around the ruins for a bit, we rode the gondola down and headed to the Dead Sea.

We were pretty stoked to get some swimming in for the first time since we've been here and it was not really what we expected.  Yeah, I've heard there's lots of salt so you float lots.  But it's actually extremely difficult to maneuver around in the Dead Sea....it's hard to flip over, get your legs under you, swim, etc.  It's pretty frustrating actually.  Plus, you can't put your head in and if you get some water in your mouth (which we all did) it tastes AWFUL (basically like eating wet salt).  Anyways, we floated around for a little bit and then showered off and hung out for a bit.  I tried lying in the sun, but that lasted all of about 3 minutes before I went back into the shade.  It's crazy...you feel like you're suntanning in the shade cause you are literally sweating buckets.  I can't even begin to describe how hot it was!  With the humidity I'm sure it was over 50.